While conducting research in the remote country of Keteng, a Stanford grad student hears that another American has entered the country and is challenging the power structures in place.

After a terrifying illness, an Indian grandmother drops everything and moves to live with her son and his wife in California. What she finds is a family that has begun to leave behind the traditions she cherishes, and her desperate attempts to save them only intensify her suffering.

Set in Canada in the 1980s, an Indian-Canadian immigrant woman travels abroad, attempting to learn how to grieve her husband and sons after a terrorist attack on the plane kills them on their way to India.

A middle-aged American woman living abroad feels alone and out of place, so she seeks company from the local church and the Mothers' Union held there. However, as an atheist, the uptight nature of the church and its members leave the woman feeling unsettled.

Just before an American college student is set to leave for the airport after visiting her extended family in Ethiopia, she realizes her suitcases are too heavy. A fight breaks out between her relatives about what items should travel with her at their behest, versus which ones deserve to be left behind.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

When a man visits an old village called Ain Tadouirt to visit an old friend and conduct research, he becomes captured by a tribe and forced to entertain. He must figure out how to escape a life of enslavement in a foreign land.

A pregnant narrator navigates her Chinese in-law’s opinions about America when they come to visit before she gives birth.

A young Native American man visits a burial site on a nearby island and must reflect on both his allegiance to his culture and to himself.